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Killing the sense of wonder
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 5334988" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>All quite valid, but let's say you and the group have overcome these obstacles for the night...you've got decent immersion and buy-in from the players, you yourself are on form as DM, things are rockin' right along - in other words, an all-round stellar session. </p><p></p><p>Why is it still so hard to find that sense of wonder?</p><p></p><p>To me, the biggest wonder-wrecker is <strong>too much knowledge</strong>:</p><p></p><p>== knowledge of rules, of what's "behind the curtain", and of the math involved; </p><p>== knowledge of items; </p><p>== knowledge of the game world (given a choice I'll play in a homebrew world every time, only because it's new and thus waiting to be discovered);</p><p>== knowledge of the rules beyond just how to play, of rules tricks, loopholes, and broken combos;</p><p>== knowledge of monsters;</p><p>== knowledge of the DM, though some are good enough to reinvent themselves and thus keep it fresh.</p><p></p><p>With work, a DM can mitigate the first, second, fourth and fifth of these by (in order) shaking up the math, replacing known item lists with unseen homebrew lists, closing loopholes/banning combos, and reskinning monsters; with the proviso that step 2 has to be to make this information harder to come by in game (eample: use 1e item identification rules rather than 4e).</p><p></p><p>For my current campaign, I tried to rename quite a few of the standard monsters just to shake it up - underneath they were the same monsters, but the players (some of whom are almost 30-year veterans) found themselves to ask what a "Grash" or a Quitch" looked and acted like - even though they are merely Orc and Kobold renamed. Now, 2.5 years in, they all know what's what; but it worked really well for a while. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Lan-"a little knowledge is a bad thing; a lot, worse"-efan</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 5334988, member: 29398"] All quite valid, but let's say you and the group have overcome these obstacles for the night...you've got decent immersion and buy-in from the players, you yourself are on form as DM, things are rockin' right along - in other words, an all-round stellar session. Why is it still so hard to find that sense of wonder? To me, the biggest wonder-wrecker is [B]too much knowledge[/B]: == knowledge of rules, of what's "behind the curtain", and of the math involved; == knowledge of items; == knowledge of the game world (given a choice I'll play in a homebrew world every time, only because it's new and thus waiting to be discovered); == knowledge of the rules beyond just how to play, of rules tricks, loopholes, and broken combos; == knowledge of monsters; == knowledge of the DM, though some are good enough to reinvent themselves and thus keep it fresh. With work, a DM can mitigate the first, second, fourth and fifth of these by (in order) shaking up the math, replacing known item lists with unseen homebrew lists, closing loopholes/banning combos, and reskinning monsters; with the proviso that step 2 has to be to make this information harder to come by in game (eample: use 1e item identification rules rather than 4e). For my current campaign, I tried to rename quite a few of the standard monsters just to shake it up - underneath they were the same monsters, but the players (some of whom are almost 30-year veterans) found themselves to ask what a "Grash" or a Quitch" looked and acted like - even though they are merely Orc and Kobold renamed. Now, 2.5 years in, they all know what's what; but it worked really well for a while. :) Lan-"a little knowledge is a bad thing; a lot, worse"-efan [/QUOTE]
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